A Thought In Time
by goddessa39
Summary: Lady Vengeance One Shot. BA kinda. Buffy remembers another time in the past of emptiness. Post'Empty Places.'And remember, it's all in our imaginations...


Challenge: 266

Using the following Quote as inspiration, write a crossover fanfic.

"Because I could not stop for Death,  
He kindly stopped for me;  
The carriage held but just ourselves  
And Immortality."  
-- Emily Dickinson - Because I could not stop for Death

……………………………….

Title: A Thought In Time

Pairings: B/Methos friendship, B/A, Methos/Ammon, other.

Timeline: Season 7 btvs, post 'Empty Places,' but before Buffy goes back to the scoobies. She is somewhere in LA, or at least not in Sunnydale. Lady Vengeance Past.

Disclaimer: I only own the Lady Vengeance Part and the fic. Everything cannony belongs to Joss, Marti and all the others at Mutant Enemy.

Notes: If you haven't guessed yet, this is one of My Lady Vengeance fics, using a challenge from PG-ish.

Genre: Angst. Etc…

Summary: Buffy hears a poem remembers an earlier time of emptiness. Lady Vengeance.

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**2002. S7 BTVS.**

She still craved heaven, that which did not belong to her anymore. It had slipped her grasp and the Slayer could do nothing about it. She was pulled from the only rest she had had in, a long time. It had been years since he had held her, and even then, when they were 'young and getting to know one another,' he did not hold her like he used to. He did not know how to any longer, his soul had forgotten with new life.

She was in the a café similar to the Espresso Pump at the moment, listening to the Sunday Night/Monday Morning poetry sessions. People came from all parts of multiple, nearby towns to quote poetry or share their own; do their reading on books or share troubles through music. Very little mattered to her anymore and she felt a sort of morbid comfort in this.

"'**Tis but fly on the sill,**

**wading waters on the beach,**

**a breathe leaving a child,**

**the warming body next to mine.**

"**Long years widened to infinity,**

**Lone nights waiting for the love,**

**Heartbreak swelling,**

**The clock ticking by unawares of eternity.**

A girl, Goth by the look of it, read poetry into the room. The Espresso Pump-look-alike was quiet as she toned the words out like an eerie angel of death playing the triangle on a halo, or maybe the flute as the ship sinks beneath the frozen waves.

"**Dust covers the ground,**

**red spots cover the green, green grass,**

**black and white dots before my eyes,**

**dizzy,**

**nothing but grey in the world.**

"**The flowers bloomed and withered beneath the creator,**

**the trees grew aflame**

**lightning strikes**

**thunder claps her hands as the wild howls."**

She knew that nothing really touched her anymore. Like a luminescent design on a black light, she was not seen under a watching gaze. There was nothing startling her senses more then anything else, for everything wearied her eyes and her tired body.

There was nothing left but the fight, and she grew tired of that over any period of time. No one really cared for her anymore and her reason dried up as the forest had into the golden desert she ached for that she had come from.

"**A cat walks into the open,**

**watching, waiting for the prey,**

**nothing there of interest,**

**sounds of a stampede do not recede.**

"**She travels in daylight,**

**fights for the Light,**

**kills of the black,**

**yet exists in the dark so lonely."**

She watched the girl exit off stage left and wondered idly if she came from a background that once was prosperous or if it even mattered. Maybe the girl was a whore's daughter and a werewolf's lover. It didn't matter for she hurt in a way the She herself felt could be compared.

**"Because I could not stop for Death,  
He kindly stopped for me;  
The carriage held but just ourselves  
And Immortality."  
**_(Emily Dickinson - Because I could not stop for Death)_

She had not realized the She herself at whispered the long forgotten poem aloud when many turned their heads towards the selfless character all knew but most strayed from for fear of the uncertain. None realized her own life was always the same. fightanddieandliveagain.hurt.pain.doitalloveragain.

She reflected on where the poem took her; a long release memory imprinted in her mind. A night she wanted to be erased yet marked all history forever. A night that killed her once again.

_Bloody and broken, she walked. Nothing was in her way except for fallen bodies, sourly disfigured in their killing. Vengeance had taken them all, as was their price for their crime, something that had killed her more then any enemy had been able to do._

_Yet she had never found the killer and would be searching for forever unless someone found a way to let her rest. Her lover was gone, her brothers were lost, her sister with them. Alone in eternity on a planet damned from the day that three men had released her upon the world along with the evil that was not already in humanity. _

_She walked and fell and gasped for breath she didn't want when her lungs crushed in and out. If she could feel, she would have hurt. If she could think, she would have cried and screamed, roared at the evil that had taken them and call a challenge to be answered or else... If she could do anything but move, she would kill all until she found the one that took them, every one, away and into the long unknown._

_The sound of hoof beats did not reach her ears until nearly atop her. A reign pulled along side another and horses, black with night, neighed their disapproval for the stop. _

_**"Because I could not stop for Death,  
He kindly stopped for me;**_

_She kept moving though, unaware of anything else until a carriage opened and a brother opened the door. Feeling rushed back and she stood motionless. For a moment, maybe they were all fine; maybe they were just too weak and tired to welcome her back. But the memory played in her battered mine on permanent replay._

_Besides, she could only feel but one inside the carriage, a brother, and the one she had found first. The evil called him Death and the good refused to call him anything else because that is what he did in the group of warriors for Light, something that he was known and hated and treasured and worshipped. _

_She walked into the carriage to find a silence grand enough to fill the sky and an emptiness that would haunt her for the length of separation from her mate, her love, her angel. Vengeance would be taken, as was her title because they were the Horseman of the Apocalypse, there to defend the light and defend the weak and innocent._

_But now there was bit too shattered souls that would know the world into forever and never get a chance of rest until the death that would hopefully welcome them, something they would not forfeit even with their broken spirits. They only had one another now. _

"_**The carriage held but just ourselves  
And Immortality."**_

_For Her lover, and his lover, and their three other brothers had been ripped from them, taken savagely as mothers wept for the lost. All that was left were the few continuous traits humanity kept. Three classes and those caught in between, innocent and unknowing of the ways of the world. There were times to be figured and yet more stuff to learn. Everything would never be known, but enough to help would be retrieved._

_They were alone in a group of people forever, and could do nothing about it but weep silently for their lost, and what kept them together was a heritage of powerful women; adopted by one and sired by the male. There was a Calling to be watched and a flame to light for hope and life of their young. _

With the memory, the realization of why she had quoted Emily Dickenson came to light. As she sat in the dim light and looked off into the age-old memories of one who should have died when three men forced something on her worse then sex washed through her memories yet again and she stood to leave.

"**All is gone,**

**But fightanddie I must.**

**I want my love, my life,**

**Along with those I trust.**

"**As night broke still,**

**the moon rose whole with a red eye,**

**blood rings surrounding,**

**me as I fell from the sky."**

She left the room in the eerie atmosphere she found it and made up her mind to go back to the hellmouth. She would do her duty and complete her dues. She would kill the evil and wait to die and greet him on the other end, for her Angel of this time wanted without her and she was left in the past of darkness that this lifetime, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that, could never remember, less these times of science and technology be shot into the ground and darkness shall show itself.

Or perhaps the 7 members in the Four Horseman shall arise again and find one another to defeat it all yet again and finally find the peace in life of happiness that they had had years before death had entered their home not in the form of a brother but in the form of a specter seeking 5 lives not meant to be taken.

She would go to her sister who had tossed her away like their mother, and her the scoobies who had sat by her and expected her to love them for everything and be the perfect on. A many-great-grand-niece to finish training and the ghosts of a life of Buffy Summers.

Perhaps her Angel would come back for her some day. Or perhaps he wouldn't and she would have to hope that he would take another form in the future. All she knew was that she would have to protect her sister like her Dawnanine had asked her to so many uncountable years before.

"'_**Lissa, will you save me if I get hurt."**_

"_**I'll protect you forever."**_

"_**Forever and ever, even if I forget?"**_

"_**Forever and ever, even if no one remembers."**_

"Forever and ever, even if I'm the only one that remembers." She whispered to her sleeping sister on the bed. She kissed her forehead tenderly and wondered if someone would ever promise her forever and mean it.

And at the battle, the blood rings around the moon arose and the slayer fought again…

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**END**- …Oh! And reviews are encouraged! Tell me what you think of this fic, "Legend: Lady Vengeance," and the memory will you:) **BA ALWAYS!**


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